Still the Addict
by Demented Inu
Summary: Four months after the Fall, Sherlock is living in America and finds himself once again attracted to murder mysteries. Sherlock-centric.


Sherlock Holmes had been "dead" for approximately four months before he gave into temptation.

The events surrounding his leap from the roof of St. Bartholomew's hospital still replayed in his mind again and again even as time passed. He had terrible nightmares of Moriarty pulling that trigger, of his nemesis's blood soaking the pavement of the roof; even worse nightmares of John's hand reaching for him from below and the sound of his voice, tinny over Sherlock's mobile phone.

'I'm a fake,' Sherlock had said, and when he'd bid his goodbye, when he'd jumped, when he'd moved to America under several different pseudonyms and disguises, he vowed to keep away from crime scenes.

But as a certain cabbie had once said, Sherlock had a horrible tendency to grow bored without mental stimulation, and thus when the newspaper headlines exploded with a man found stabbed to death in an alleyway, even if it hadn't been a particularly interesting case, Sherlock was on the scene like the true addict he was.

Policemen covered the alleyway like flies on a corpse, and Sherlock was among them, in one of his most frequently used disguises. Back in London, he had considered this his "hipster" look - hair pulled back in a very short ponytail, sunglasses over his eyes, a beanie on his head and wearing checkered skinny jeans. Dressed this way, he knew he looked no older than a teenager, and that was how he was able to make his way toward the front of the crowd, where yellow tape blocked off the entry to the alley.

"Hey, back up," one of the officers said, holding up his hands. "This is a crime scene."

"Please." Sherlock put on his best imitation of an emotionally broken teenage boy - not too difficult to do, considering his upbringing. His accent even vanished, making him sound as American as ever. "Please, he was- he was a friend of mine. Please. I just want one look."

The officer did look conflicted now, but instead shook his head. (The man had day-old stubble and reeked of woman's perfume. Funny, considering he was married; how many of the other officers knew about the affair?) "No can do. You can identify him in the morgue later if you knew him so well. I can't let a kid onto the scene."

But after wheedling and eventually bringing himself to tears, Sherlock was able to duck under the crime scene tape and take a look at the body for himself.

Mid-thirties. (John's age, he thought with a pang in his heart.) A forced tan, likely from a tanning bed; near-sighted, glasses crooked but not cracked (not much of a struggle, then). Bruises of fingers on the bronze throat. Pale line where a wedding ring should be, removed. Blood on the toe of the boot. The killer's? Perhaps, but he doubted it.

"It's fuckin' sad," the officer said as one of the forensics investigators pocketed a sample of the dried blood on the boot. "Third murder over the last two weeks, can you believe that?"

In truth, Sherlock could very well believe that. He'd seen other killings like this in the paper before, though of course this one seemed no different from your average murder. "Did-" He forced a waver in his voice, even if his interest was piqued. "Did... God, I'm so sorry... Can I just have a second?" He put his face in his hands, removing the sunglasses, wiping away tears. They were real tears, he was no shoddy actor. The policemen turned politely away from him, stepping back toward the scene tape, giving him a chance to view the body alone.

The man had his things in his pockets - cash, car keys. This was no mugging, but then again, that much was obvious. Whoever had done this was obviously quite used to committing the crime, judging from the accuracy of the wounds. It wasn't haphazard stabbing that had killed this man, but rather the killer's hands had moved with a precision of a serial killer. Could he prove this was part of a series of serial killings? Not yet. But the person who had done this hadn't known the man in person, he could tell that from the sheer science in it; they'd simply become too caught up in what they were doing to notice the dropped knife lying in the evidence bag a bit further away, near the forensics equipment. He glanced over the body again, at the rather slapdash clothes and- Oh, hello. His eyes focused on a blonde hair against the dark shirt and he plucked it from the cloth with spidery fingers. Sherlock removed an empty pill bottle from his pocket, popped it open, and quietly dropped the hair into it, took his own sample of the dried blood, and then managed to sneak the bagged knife away as well, shoving it safely into his pants.

So the man was an adulterer, then, not an experienced one but that hardly mattered. He was Caucasian, had kicked someone or something hard enough for it to blood - someone who didn't fight back, despite the apparent stabbing - and had been killed with someone with slender fingers and manicured nails.

"This kinda job gets to you," one of the officers was saying. "Can you imagine the man heavy enough to take this guy out?"

Passing by again, under the police tape, Sherlock said in passing, "Woman."

The officer looked at him with confusion. "What?"

"The person you're looking for," Sherlock said, now not bothering to hide his London accent. "She isn't a man. She's a woman. Around five feet five inches in height, blonde, with manicured fingernails. My guess is a sex worker of some sort, going by the heels she wears."

The officer (thick-necked, rough-handed, expected of someone in the New York City police force) gave him a rather offended look. "You can't prove that. You can't know that just from looking. You don't know anything."

Sherlock's eyes flashed at the challenge, and turning back toward the policeman, he looked him over."

I know you're a father of four, or at least you should have been, had one of your children not died at the hands of an arsonist. I know that's why you became an officer in the first place. I know you have two sisters, both of whom are of the opinion that this job is beneath you, considering your rather impressive education, but I also know that you don't get on with your siblings, mostly because they try to pressure you into taking up a higher position, and partly because of their recent drug habits. I know that you're far more accustomed to office work than field work, and that this isn't the worst you've seen, but you're out of practice after you were bedridden from a recent heart attack."

Silence followed and the officer gaped; in fact, all of them did. Finally he said softly, "You- You're guessing."

Sherlock blinked. "I never guess, Officer Hart." He nodded toward them and finally began to make his way out again. "You see... but you don't observe."

Thumbing the evidence currently nestled safely in his pocket, he thought over the facts thus far. A serial killer. Always fun. Normally he would have to wait for her to make a mistake, but she'd already done it for him - leaving her knife at the crime scene. It would have been more dangerous for her had it not rained last night. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. A female serial killer, a sex worker, someone experienced in the art of murder-

Now this, he thought. This would definitely be interesting.


End file.
